Frontlines: The Latest from OutServe-SLDN

I served was SETAF soldier of the year and I am gay.

“I was told that they would prepare my discharge paperwork, ‘stick it in a Manila envelope, & keep it in a desk—for now’.”

TRANSLATION: When we no longer need you…or if you aren’t killed…we’ll kick you to the curb faster than you can say, “God bless America.”

NOTHING better demonstrates the rotten-to-its-core hypocrisy of Barack Obama & Robert “Not Yet” Gates, et al., than the decades-long practice of stop-loss of which this soldier’s story is but one of thousands. They like to pretend that stop-loss is not only entirely new but ridiculously & dangerously unworkable.
The facts, as documented by the Palm Center.
Allen Berube’s “Coming Out Under Fire”: In WWII, an “adjutant general ordered the commanding general of the West Coast Air Corps Training Center in California to review the cases of some men ALREADY CONVICTED OF SODOMY “to determine their respective availability for military service” with “the view of conserving all available manpower for service in the Army.” He canceled the men’s dishonorable discharges & made them eligible for reassignment AFTER COMPLETING THEIR PRISON SENTENCES!

1945: facing manpower shortages during the final European offensive in Europe, Secty of War Harry Stimson, ordered a review of all gay discharges & ordered commanders to “salvage” homosexual soldiers for service whenever necessary.

The # of men discharged for being gay during WWII was only in the low thousands out of 16 MILLION men who served. That’s A LOT of “looking the other way” no matter how low one thinks the incidence of homosexuality is in the population.

1950, during the Korean War, there were only 483 discharges.
1953, when the Armistice was signed, there were 1353.

1966, THE NAVY ALONE discharged 1708 gays, but as the war in Vietnam escalated, they started to drop, & by 1970 the Navy only discharged 461.

After our last troops left Vietnam in 1975, discharges began to go up again.

During the 1st Gulf War, a Pentagon spokesman said, “Any administrative procedure is dependent on operational considerations of the unit that would administer such proceedings.” READ: if they need cannon fodder bad enough, gay cannon fodder is just as good as straight.

“Gay GI’s Told, Serve Now, Face Discharge Later,” read a “Wall Street Journal” headline January 24, 1991.

In the 1999"Army Commander’s Handbook,” still in effect: “if discharge is not requested prior to the unit’s receipt of alert notification, discharge isn’t authorized. Member will enter active duty with the unit.”

Amplifying [or ignorant of] federal law 10 USC 12305 which Congress passed in 1983 [which Obama likes to pretend doesn’t exist], 3 days after 9/11, Bush signed an Executive Order authorizing stop-loss.

The highest # of discharges under DADT were in the 1st year of the Bush fils administration, 2001. But with his invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq, they began to fall, & continued to for each year but one, until by his last full year in office annual discharges had dropped by more than half.

In 2005, an Army spokesman acknowledged they were sending openly gay service members into combat in Iraq, insisting that it was just to prevent people from using claims of being gay to get out of combat.

Last year, Obama announced a build-up in Afghanistan, & discharges dropped still further.

“By deploying suspected homosexuals with their units, the services bring into question their own argument that the presence of homosexuals seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission.” - Congressional Research Service.

Many ask if the President is reading these letters. But they forget that all of this is NOT NEWS to him; that these letters echo things HE’s said himself multiple times, like this from 2007:

“In 1993, the Democratic Party faced a test of leadership, & our party failed that test. We had an opportunity to be leaders on the World stage in eliminating discrimination against gay & lesbian service members, to recognize the patriotism & heroism of the hundreds of thousands of gay & lesbian citizens who have served our country. Instead, we bowed to fear & prejudice. We were told that American soldiers weren’t ready to serve next to gay & lesbian comrades. We were told that our airmen, sailors & Marines would lose their ‘unit cohesion’ if we implemented a policy of equality. And so, rather than embracing leadership & principle, we embraced Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell-a policy that is antithetical to the values of honor & integrity that our military holds most dear.”

TRANSLATION: that’s what the husband of my opponent for the nomination did, but, trust me, I’ll be different.

As a Soldier that was discharged under DADT in 2001 it angers me that 9 years later DADT is still around. Sometimes I wonder why even fight it? It’s very clear that our Countries leaders sleep well at night knowing the power they hold is preventing a class of people from being treated as EQUALS. 
Then I read stories such as yours and I’m reminded why I (we) have to keep fighting for what’s right! I have never met you but know this, YOU matter and make a difference. Without your dedication to serve our Country, it wouldn’t be what it is today. THANK YOU! When you get deployed and ever want to vent or have a friend to talk to I’m here.
Mike Lange